The Play What I Wrote

Hamish McColl and Sean Foley - aka The Right Size - have, in the past,
taken seemingly dull premises, such as two people stuck in a bathroom
for thirty years (Do You Come Here Often?) or two people who
fall down the back of a sofa (Bewilderness) and turned them into
some of the most hilarious and inventive shows you will ever see on
stage. The Play What I Wrote has become their biggest commercial
success by far with runs in the West End and on Broadway as well as
UK tours. When it starts to tour with other performers in place of Foley
and McColl, it changes from being a comedy act into a play but, as this
production shows, with the right people in those parts it does not stop
it from being very funny.

The show is a tribute to Morecambe and Wise, for many the greatest-ever
British comedy double act. However the first half of the show is about
the straight one (Kim Wall) insisting to the funny one (Clive Hayward)
that he is not going to sell out by doing a crowd-pleasing show about
Morecambe and Wise as he wants to be taken seriously as a playwright
by putting on "the play what he wrote". This clever concept
means that the two main characters "do" Morecambe and Wise
without ever doing impressions of them, trying to recreate their famous
routines or falling back on biographical scenes. The script peppers
the original material with some recognisable lines from Morecambe and
Wise's own routines, but they are always delivered knowingly and in
a new context. Just to make sure they get the comedy right, Foley and
McColl co-opted onto their writing team Eddie Braben, who wrote scripts
for Eric and Ernie for fourteen years. Of course, after a few songs,
dances and silly routines, they end up doing Kim's play set in the time
of the French Revolution, A Tight Squeeze for the Scarlet Pimple.

Clive Hayward and Kim Wall do a good job of stepping into Foley and
McColl's shoes, recreating both the funny and the occasional touching
moments very well, as well as performing some quite energetic dance
routines. The third member of the regular cast is Andy Williams, who
brilliantly portrays a number of over-the-top and very funny characters.
Alice Power's designs recreate accurately 70s-style TV scenery, and
sometimes her designs are an integral part of the comedy in the show.
As is well-publicised, there is also a fourth performer that may be
different each performance: the secret celebrity guest star for them
to abuse, insult, dance with and give terrible lines to in the play
what Kim wrote.

This is an extremely funny show, well performed, that anyone who loved
the humour of Morecambe and Wise will enjoy.

"The Play What I Wrote" runs until 9th
October 2004 and tours until 4th December 2004